When people think of the insurance industry, seldom do they feel excitement, despite its expansive impact on everyday life. While the modern American insurance industry dates back to the early 1700s, the concept has been around for over 4000 years. In that time the premise has not changed much: execute policies, collect premiums, and process claims. While new products such as cyber or wildfire insurance have been developed, the industry has been due for a shake-up in how these products are delivered. Nowhere is that shakeup more urgently needed than in the medical industry. Sensitive and compl ..read more

Alternative Lending (“AL”) generally refers to lending channels, processes, and instruments that have emerged outside of financial services such as regulated banks and capital markets. Alternative lenders are using data science and machine learning to identify quality borrowers that banks haven’t served historically, opening up new revenue streams not captured by traditional Financial Institutions (“FIs”). Through AL providers, businesses and consumers that normally would not have access to credit with traditional financial institutions can get access to alternative sources of financing. These ..read more

By Alex Tong and the Information VP team Fresh from the news that FinTech investment has reached an all-time high in Q3 2021, more eyes are on the entire FinTech ecosystem. While much of that attention is being paid to major markets – America, Asia, Europe – I want to highlight that America’s neighbours to the North are punching well above their weight. Often overlooked in comparison to its neighbour to the south, Canada’s FinTech ecosystem is growing rapidly and is taking advantage of the impressive tech talent located here. Many are unaware of the country’s impact, unsure how a country of ju ..read more

The incredible expansion of the global economy in the past ~fourteen years, driven in large part by low interest rates and the availability of risk capital, is now coming to an end. However we remain incredibly optimistic about the next fourteen years in FinTech and the B2B software market at large. In order for the tailwinds in software to continue in the near term, it requires (a) operators to accept and adapt to this new future, and (b) for many VC investors to stray away from the “herd mentality” equilibrium that seems to exist right now. Founders and investors have already begun to recali ..read more

This piece was originally included as part of our “For Your Information” triannual newsletter on September 6th, 2022. If you would like to receive this newsletter, please subscribe here. The US VC industry has raised a record amount of capital in the past few years including, an, ahem, measly, $128B in 2021. Yes, B as in billions (this is cash, not the TV series). According to the IMF, this would rank as the 59th largest economy by GDP in 2020 just ahead of Morocco. But, where is this capital for the start-ups? It is not a secret that the industry has slowed its investing pace, down 27% year o ..read more

Information Venture Partners is pleased to announce its $5M Series A investment in NY-based capital markets deep tech company FX HedgePool. Foreign exchange (FX) hedging is a deep and complex world of boring but voluminous transactions. When buy-side players need to hedge their FX risk today they traditionally look to derivatives products knows as FX swaps, whereby two parties on opposing sides of the exchange rate agree to a future rate, brokered by intermediary banks. FX Swaps represented an average of US$3.2 Trillion of derivatives daily trading volume in 2019, a number which continues to g ..read more

Nue Kid on the Block (with the Lemonade Stand)   Imagine you’re driving through a typical leafy, suburban area and come across a classic kid’s lemonade stand. Feeling parched on a hot summer’s day, you figure you’ll stop in, pay them a couple of bucks, and get a nice, refreshing drink. As you get closer, you notice there’s not one, but three separate stalls all under the same banner. Curious, you park and walk up to the first stall. Stall one is the sales kid. They tell you about how this is the greatest lemonade in the neighbourhood – it’s cold, fresh, sweet, and tangy – and, just for yo ..read more

“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway” – John Wayne   Sitting in the shadows of the Canadian Rockies, a city once known mostly for its cowboys and oil is beginning its adventure into a new frontier and emerging as a contender to watch. Calgary’s rise as an innovation hub has been bolstered by its cowboy roots, with founders saddled up to make bold advances into new markets. One such founder, who has truly pulled himself up by his bootstraps, is looking at an underserved landscape and ready to tackle the challenge… Small and Mid-Sized Businesses (SMBs) have faced an ext ..read more

Aman Nabi is a two-time founder with a passion for innovation in financial technology. He brings his background in aerospace engineering, entrepreneurship, and business operations to the Information VP team as an Associate. Aman considers his value likens to a swiss army knife and is eager to contribute to the team in a wide variety of ways. We are excited to have Aman join the Information VP team this year and wanted to take this opportunity to introduce him to our network. — What tech trends are you most excited about? There are a few trends that really jump out at me as reshaping tech ..read more

If you have worked in a tech company at any stage, you’ve likely come across cybersecurity audits. The largest companies in even the most established industries are utilizing solutions from modern cloud vendors and this will continue to be a major need, as regulations are becoming more rigid. This means that cybersecurity compliance has become necessary earlier and earlier in the journey of many of tech companies. The difference between being SOC 2 certified and not is truly make or break. As investors in B2B technology companies modernizing financial services and other enterprises, we’ve seen ..read more